Disposable absorbent articles such as disposable baby diapers and adult incontinent briefs, underpants, guards and the like articles are widely used in homes and various health care facilities and institutions. Indeed the use of such articles has become a common sanitary practice, and while initially such absorbent articles were used mostly for baby care, more recently their use has been expanded for adults as well. In both instances, the absorbent article must be designed to effectively prevent leakage of urine and other fecal materials, while insuring body fit and comfort.
Present commercially available absorbent articles are generally unitary in structure, pre-shaped and pre-folded, and comprise an absorptive pad having a liquid permeable top sheet facing the wearer's body, a liquid impermeable backsheet on the opposite side, and an absorbent sheet or panel disposed between the top sheet and the back sheet. The absorbent article comprises a front side portion, a crotch portion and a backside portion, and further includes elastic members along the circumference of the waist and around the leg openings. While the heretofore commercially available absorbent articles have been somewhat effective against leakage of body fluids and fecal materials, and have therefore met some degree of acceptability, they have not been entirely satisfactory for their intended applications. In other words, they have not proven to be entirely leak proof, nor have they completely prevented issuance of the body exudates outside the diaper or the underpants. These deficiencies are primarily due to inadequate and loose body fit, which result in leakage of the body fluids and solids through the legs' openings. These problems are even more pronounced in case of adults because of their diverse body shapes and varying contours. Another disadvantage of the commercially available absorbent articles such as diapers, incontinent briefs and the like, is associated with the ability of opening and removing the soiled article without soiling the wearer's legs or body.
There is a plethora of patents which disclose the different attempts made by the prior art workers over the years to eliminate, or at least minimize, the shortcomings of the present commercially available absorbent articles.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,909,804 issued to Herman Douglas, Jr. on Mar. 20, 1990 discloses a child toilet training pant which has a means for elasticizing the leg and waist openings by elastic bands at the waist and leg openings. The training pant described in that patent is provided with a separable side seem from the waistband to the legband on both sides in order to permit easy removal of the toddler's pant when soiled. This article does not provide for examination of the condition of the diaper and requires tearing the side seams to remove the diaper which can thus result in soiling the toddler as well as the applier.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,569,234 issued to Kenneth B. Buell et al. on Oct. 29, 1996 describes a pull-on garment provided with a continuous belt in the front region and the back region to distribute the forces generated during use in order to better fit the pull-on garment on the wearer. As in the above-mentioned patent to Douglas, Jr., the article described in Buell et al. does not provide for examination of the condition of the diaper and requires tearing a side seam for its removal, thus also causing soiling to the wearer and applier of the garment.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,607,416 issued to Masamitsu Yamamoto et al. on Mar. 4, 1997 describes a disposable absorbent pad comprising a pad member adapted to be formed into a boat shape under the contractible forces of elastic members contained in side flaps, and an elastic support member; longitudinally opposite sides of the pad member being connected to the front and rear sides of the support member by end flaps. Each of the end flaps comprises a top sheet and a back sheet and is divided in a pair of end flap halves by a slit so as to function as a suspending strap. The end flaps halves are set apart in a V-shape with the slit therebetween as the support members is stretched and contributes to suspend the pad member with high stability. The absorbent pad described in the Yamamoto et al. patent does not provide for forces to counteract the weight of the soiled pad which eventually stretches the crotch region and thus may cause leakage of urine and other body exudates through the leg openings.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,204,997 issued to Migaku Suzuki et al. on Apr. 27, 1993 describes a disposable pant-type garment, such as a diaper, which is constructed by attaching elastic surrounding flaps around the leg openings and the waist opening. This garment however is not elastically integral between the crotch and the waist portions and is not adjustable around the waist to conformably fit the body shape. Nor does this garment allow adjustment or refastening of the elastic flaps to insure body fit when the garment is soiled.
European patent application 799,002 published Jun. 6, 1996 (WO 96/19169) describes an absorbent article such as a diaper which Is provided with a closure system for anchoring the absorbent article to the wearer. The absorbent article is provided with tape tabs which are disposed at an angle of approximately 45 degree relative to the longitudinal side edges. The closure system is designed so that a plane of tension is formed at least about the front waist portion of the article to preclude rollover of the front waist portion.
European patent application 802,778 published Jul. 18, 1996 (WO 96/21412) describes a disposable diaper having an absorbent part, a pair of ear parts projecting in opposite directions from opposite side edges of one of the longitudinal end portions of the absorbent part, and two fastening means are attached to the side edges of the ear parts, respectively. Each fastening means is attached to the ear part in a pulling section of the side edge, overlapping at least part of a first side edge section and part of a second side edge section so that component tensile forces of a tensile force applied to the fastening means are distributed at a desired distribution ratio to the waist lapping portion and the leg lapping portion of the absorbent part.
European patent application 814,740 published Sep. 26, 1996 (WO 96/29038) discloses a disposable diaper having a pair of ears with oblique side edges which are inclined to extend at a predetermined angle to the longitudinal center axis of the absorbent article. The fastening means are attached to the oblique side edges and each oblique side edge has a first oblique side edge and a second oblique side edge section. Each ear has a stress relaxing structure and each fastening means is attached to the ear in order to distribute tensile forces.
The foregoing patents by no means constitute an exhaustive list of the patents which reflect the efforts of the prior art workers in this field, but are merely illustrative for background purposes. As it can be appreciated, however, notwithstanding attempts by others to provide satisfactory absorbent articles for infants as well as for incontinent adults, there is still a need for providing improved articles commercially, which are highly effective in preventing leakage of urine and other body exudates, and which are comfortable to wear and conformably fit the body contours so as to insure against such leakage and prevent soiling the wearer's body as well as the person who applies the garment to the wearer.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a disposable absorbent article such as baby diapers, adult incontinent underpants, briefs, guards and the like articles, which overcome the deficiencies and shortcomings of the prior art absorbent articles, including the present commercially available products used for this purpose.
It is another object of this invention to provide disposable absorbent articles which, due to their unique construction, provide improved fit to the body and prevent leakage of urine and other body exudates through the leg openings by countering the movements of the wearer and the weight of the downstretching of the crotch portion.
It is also an object of this invention to provide such disposable absorbent articles which have integral refastenable and longitudinally tensionable elastic elements which insure body fit and conformal movements in response to the body shape and contours, and provides for examination of the condition of the article.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide such disposable absorbent articles which have triple member closure system in order to insure proper distribution of the pulling forces resulting in a more perfect and snug fit of the article to the body.
The foregoing and other objects and features of the present invention will be more fully comprehended and appreciated from the ensuing detailed description and the figures in the drawing which form parts of the application.